NEWS BULLETIN

JANUARY 2023

UNITED AGAINST APARTHEID: A NEW YEAR, A RENEWED COMMITMENT

MARIYAMIYA: SEEDS OF RESISTANCE

The Palestinian scholar, cultural activist, and music artist Dr Haidar Eid is currently in South Africa. The Gaza-based intellectual will be speaking and performing on the 3rd of February 2023 at the Mariyamiya: Seeds of Resistance event, hosted by the PSA at the Trevor Huddlestone Memorial Centre in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. You can register to attend here.

Dr Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the oppression of Palestine by Israel, and his articles have featured in internationally esteemed journals and media publications. Dr Eid is also a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee as well as a member of the One Democratic State Campaign, where he campaigns tirelessly for justice in Palestine.

Dr Eid recently collaborated with the PSA to launch the Mariyamiya video - a musical story that poignantly weaves together traditional Palestinian songs of resistance, culture, and courage. Speaking on the video, Dr Haidar Eid noted that it promotes Palestinian culture and preserves the stories of pre-1948 Palestine. “These were stories of love, death, marriage, chivalry, courtship, harvest, resistance, and bravery. Those stories, represented in cultural practices, are what has kept Palestine alive from generation to generation. Weddings have become cultural sites of resistance and survival. And no matter whether the old die, still the young have proven that they will not forget.”

We look forward to exhibiting the video to a live audience, while also featuring live performances from Haidar Eid and The Mavr!x on the 3rd of February. The evening will also feature poetry recitals by esteemed South African poets, as well as a discussion led by the Palestinian activist, Rifka Al-Amya, on her experience of being a woman and a mother living under occupation in Gaza.

We look forward to hosting the event for an evening that celebrates the importance of culture, art, and music in resistance; the evening is one not to miss.

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP MASSACRE

In the early hours of the morning on the 26th of January, the military forces of Apartheid Israel invaded the Jenin Refugee Camp, showering the Palestinians with bullets and murdering 11 Palestinians. Palestinians have faced brutal displacement and violence at the hands of Israel’s occupying regime for decades now. The Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre is the latest in a series of horror Palestinians are subjected to. We are horrified by the brutality of Israel’s illegal occupation and outraged at the silence of the international community which continues to mask Israel’s war crimes. We condemn the horrific murders at the Jenin Refugee Camp and reiterate our call to the South African government to Boycott and Sanction Israel and Divest from Israeli businesses. Israeli forces clearly targeted the infrastructure of the Jenin Refugee Camp, aiming to further maim Palestinians.

Places of refuge for displaced Palestinians are continuously targeted by Israeli forces and attacked, with the very clear intention of further displacing, harming, and ethnically cleansing Palestinians. After attacking the Jenin Refugee Camp, the Apartheid military forces attacked the Jenin Government Hospital, firing tear gas bombs and targeting staff and patients alike; an onslaught documented by the media. Israel’s war crimes have been well documented and reported, may it be mainstream media or first-hand accounts from Palestinians via social media. Despite this thorough documentation of Israel’s horrific ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, there is silence from global world leaders who continue to normalise relations with Israel and therefore normalise the occupation of and racism against the Palestinians.

We remember the martyrs; Abullah Al-Ghoul, Hamoudi Al-Washi, Majeda Obaid, Waseem J’as, Mu’tasim Abu Al-Hassan, Izz Al-Din Salahat, Saeb Izuraiqe, Noor Ghuneim, Hamoudi Al-Shaqi of the Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre and the countless others who have lost their lives in the fight against Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing. We remember those who have laid down their lives for the cause in our prayers and affirm our commitment to ensuring that their lives were not lost in vain. We condemn the international community for their continued silence in the face of the continuous Genocide of the Palestinian people and the global leaders, including South Africa, who continue to normalise relations with Aparthied Israel. We call on the South African government to do better and to do more, to keep the promises they continue to make to the Palestinian people and to sever diplomatic ties and sanction Israel.

Existence is Resistance.

End Apartheid End Occupation.

Freedom or Martyrdom. Victory is Certain.

United Against ApartheId Israel!

ANC 55th CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) recently published the resolutions on International Relations which have come out of its 55th conference. The resolutions are quoted verbatim below:

Palestine and Israel

1. Recognizing that South Africa and Palestine share a common history of struggle. Reminded by the words of Nelson Mandela that “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’’.

2. Noting with concern the deepening dire situation in Palestine due to the brutality of the Israel apartheid state on the peoples of Palestine, and the expansion of Israeli relations with African states.

3. Noting the ongoing expansion and growth of the Israeli and colonial-settlement and hundreds of Palestinians killed, including children. Also noting the hundreds of Palestinian homes that have been destroyed and displaced.

4. The ANC continues to pledge and intensify its solidarity with the people of Palestine for freedom, independence, justice, and equality.

5. The ANC’s solidarity campaign and engagements should be informed by regular interaction with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

6. The ANC should intensify its engagement with the civil society campaign in support of the Palestinian liberation by working with solidarity organizations and progressive forces domestically, regionally, and continentally.

The PSA welcomes the commitment by the ANC to intensify engagement with civil society campaigns in support of Palestinian liberation. We look forward to engaging with them further as we try to deepen international solidarity and support for Palestine.

In particular, we hope to highlight the need for the ruling party to incorporate the terminology of apartheid and settler colonialism as legal phrasing which can be weaponised in the international arena to intensify support for the Palestinian people.

This phrasing has been adopted and supported by the PLO in its newly formed Anti-Apartheid Department, which includes the BDS National Committee, the Palestinian NGO Network, the Palestinian Ministry of Justice and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council. The PLO’s Anti-Apartheid Department makes several calls upon the international community, which the ANC would do well to adhere to.

These include imposing legal, military-security, commercial, financial, academic, cultural and sports sanctions on the state of Israel; actively supporting the global BDS movement; reinstituting the Special Committee and Center against Apartheid in the UN General Assembly; Supporting the call for the International Court of Justice to declare Israeli occupation as a racist settler-colonial system; prosecuting Israeli war criminals at the International Criminal Court; and forming international intersectional alliances to pursue racial, environmental, social and other forms of justice.

We would also like to recognise that the fight against the effects of apartheid and settler colonialism in South Africa is far from over. Where the ANC played a liberatory role in dismantling political apartheid, it needs to reinvigorate its liberatory ethos in the democratic era. Tthe majority of South Africa’s black population still suffer from the effects of land dispossession, racial domination, subjugation, and fragmentation. South Africa’s freedom and Palestine’s are deeply intertwined. The fight for our joint liberation requires us to fight against the global imperialist and capitalist forces that entrench dependency and inhibit the development of the masses. This necessitates radical action through economic and land reform, deeper democracy, and militant accountability on the national and international scale.

Aluta continua!

AQSA WEEK

Aqsa Week is a global initiative which officially began in 2017 to promote the love for Masjid Al-Aqsa. It is a week for people around the world to organise events, create conversation and raise awareness about the importance of Masjid Al-Aqsa as well as the plight of the Palestinian people. This year, Aqsa Week will be celebrated from the 13th to the 19th of February under the banner of #LoveAqsa. We urge all PSA members and supporters of the Palestinian cause to educate themselves and spread awareness about Masjid Al-Aqsa and the need to protect it against the Zionist onslaught and occupation.

For those who may not be familiar, Masjid Al-Aqsa is located in Jerusalem and is considered the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. It is a place of deep spiritual significance for Muslims around the world and holds a central role in Islamic history and tradition.

Unfortunately, the rights and religious freedoms of the Palestinian people, and the sanctity of Masjid Al-Aqsa, are under attack. The Israeli government has plans to divide the site spatially between Muslims and Jews, and there are suggestions to apportion specific prayer times for different religious groups within the compound.

Furthermore, the Masjid has been under Israeli occupation for 52 years, with Israeli police having the final say on who is allowed to enter the site. In recent years, the Masjid has often been besieged, raided, and even shut down. Additionally, large numbers of Israeli police-protected messianic Jewish extremists from the Temple movement make provocative visits to the Masjid with the goal of eventually destroying it.

The Israeli government has also been digging underneath the Masjid foundation for many years, and there are over 60 underground tunnels in the Masjid vicinity. This, coupled with the aggressive policy of Judaization in the wider city of Jerusalem, which includes revocation of Palestinian residency permits, confiscation and demolition of homes, and heavy taxation, is causing immense harm to the Palestinian people and their rights.

That is why Aqsa Week is so important. It is a week for people around the world to organize events, create conversation, and raise awareness on the centrality of Masjid Al-Aqsa as well as the plight of the Palestinian people. We urge one and all to participate in Aqsa Week and to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rights. Together, we can make a difference and protect the sanctity of Masjid Al-Aqsa and the religious freedoms of the Palestinian people.

For more information, contact the Palestine Information Network or visit the Aqsa Week website.

ETHNIC CLEANSING OF KHAN AL-AHMAR

The Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) is deeply concerned about the imminent forced displacement of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, home to at least 180 people. The village has been the subject of a years-long legal battle with Israeli authorities over its survival and has captured international attention.

On Monday, dozens of Palestinians protested against the threats made by top Israeli politicians to carry out the forced displacement of the village. The protest was sparked by far-right politician and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said he would push ahead with the village’s forced removal and plans emerged of a visit to the site by far-right ministers, including Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The Israeli government says the village was “built without a permit,” but Palestinians and human rights organizations say it is extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits in occupied East Jerusalem and in what’s known as Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank.

The PSA believes that the policy of making it difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits is part of a larger Israeli strategy to strengthen and maintain a Jewish demographic majority in the area. This is not only heartless and discriminatory but also illegal under international law. The forcible transfer of protected people in occupied territory is classified as a war crime under international law. Amnesty International has previously called efforts to remove the residents of Khan al-Ahmar as “not only heartless and discriminatory [but also] illegal”.

Khan al-Ahmar is located in the West Bank, a few kilometers from Jerusalem and between two major illegal Israeli settlements, Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. It lies along a key corridor stretching to the Jordan Valley where Israel aims to expand and link settlements, effectively cutting the West Bank into two. This would have devastating consequences for the Palestinian people, as it would make it even more difficult for them to move around and access basic services such as healthcare and education.

The PSA calls on the international community to take immediate action to stop the forced displacement of the people of Khan al-Ahmar. The forcible transfer of the Khan al-Ahmar community amounts to a war crime and must be stopped. The PSA also calls on the Palestinian leadership to take all necessary measures to protect the people of Khan al-Ahmar and to ensure that their rights are respected. We are inspired by the words of Khairy Hanoun, a Palestinian activists who has been protesting against the forced removals: “If you demolish Khan al-Ahmar, even if you demolish it 100 times, we will keep rebuilding it.”

THE PROLIFERATION OF ANTI-BDS LAWS IN THE USA

The US is currently seeing a rise in anti-boycott laws that are being used to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes, occupation, and apartheid. These laws are limiting the First Amendment rights of US Palestine solidarity advocates and are the first step in a larger assault on civil liberties. As of October 2022, 34 states have introduced bills and executive orders that penalize those participating in boycotts of Israel, affecting over 250 million US citizens.

The Arkansas Times, a local newspaper, even had an advertising contract withdrawn from a public university for refusing to give up their right to boycott Israel. The pro-Israel lobby, including evangelical Christian organizations, is pushing for these laws and using non-governmental organizations to funnel millions of dollars to advocate for anti-BDS legislation.

This crackdown on freedom to boycott has wider implications and is being used as a template for other forms of protest and boycotts, such as against the fossil fuel and firearms industries. It also has significant implications for pro-Palestine action in other countries.

In South Africa, UCT almost passed a motion to institute an academic boycott against Israeli institutions. Part of the reason that the boycott did not pass was because UCT would have lost a lot of funding from academic grant-making institutions based in US states with anti-BDS laws.

It is crucial that we defend the right to boycott so that we can maintain active solidarity with Palestinian people. The BDS movement is rooted in the historical and ongoing struggles of oppressed peoples against colonialism and apartheid, and it seeks to build a global solidarity movement that challenges the structures of power that maintain these systems of oppression. It is one of the most effective tools we have to challenge Israel’s policies on an international scale, and there is a reason why the Zionist lobby tries so hard to weaken it.

BDS is an anti-imperialist tool, and as anti-imperialists, we need to fight to defend it.

THE POLICIES OF ISRAEL’S NEW EXTREMIST GOVERNMENT

In an escalation of the Nakba, Israel has sworn in a new extremist government, which some have labeled as the most vehemently right-wing in its history. The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, has recently published a position paper about the new government’s guiding principles. The paper highlights Netanyahu’s new government’s ideological commitment to Jewish supremacy, apartheid-style governance, racial discrimination, and the criminilisation of Palestinian identity. Adalah calls for urgent intervention by international bodies, including by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to take action against Apartheid Israel.

According to Adalah's analysis, the new Israeli government is built on the guiding principle of Jewish supremacy and racial segregation. This is evident in the government's basic guidelines, which establish that the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. This principle is used to deny the Palestinian people the right to self-determination and to institutionalise a racist regime of supremacy and segregation in all areas under Israel's control.

The government's policies regarding administration and control over the West Bank also promote illegal Jewish settlements, retrospective legalisation of existing illegal settlements, and the transfer of military to civilian control over Israeli Jewish settlers unlawfully occupying Palestinian land, effectively annexing the West Bank.

The government's policies also include the establishment of a special security agency unit that will operate in Palestinian towns and neighbourhoods, the appointment of an ultra-nationalist leader as National Security Minister, and a commitment to grant sweeping impunity for police officers and soldiers who kill Palestinians.

Additionally, the government's policies aim to deepen the Judaisation and expropriation of Palestinian land, establish separate economic systems for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to ensure inequality, and criminalise Palestinian expression and identity. Adalah argues that these policies violate international law and amount to apartheid.

It is incumbent upon the international community to unite against the existential threat to Palestinians posed by the new Israeli government. We must fight to ensure that the genocidal logic of Zionist settler colonialism is challenged at every level. It is our task to take this fight to the South African government and pressure it to call on the international community to reconstitute the UN Special Committee against Apartheid.

ISRAELI PROTESTS AGAINST NETANYAHU

Over a hundred thousand protestors recently took to the streets to denounce the newly formed far-right government of Israel. While this extremist government is undoubtedly a cause of dramatic concern for Palestinians, we should do well to remember that Israeli apartheid does not start or end with the current ruling formation. What we're seeing on the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities is not a fight for democracy, but a fight for the preservation of a status-quo that coats Israel’s system of dispossession, fragmentation, deprivation, and domination with a veneer of civility.

It is important to remember that Israel has never been a democracy. The Israeli "democratic state" is a myth, an illusion built to sustain the oppression of the Palestinian people and continue their dispossession. The recent protests should not be conflated with support for the Palestinian people.

In fact, many of the so-called "pro-democracy" protesters are longtime enemies of the Palestinian people. These include former Prime Minister and Defence Minister Benny Gantz and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who are guilty of war crimes against Gazans. The anti-democratic sentiment of protestors at these rallies was made clear when they swiftly pulled down the Palestinian flags of some anti-Zionist attendees at the march.

It is instructive to note that the protests against Israel’s new government occurred in defense of one of Israel’s most oppressive institutions: the Israeli Supreme Court. The courst has a long record rulings against Palestinian rights. Time and again, it has failed to rein in the absolute power of the Israeli military, even when it commits the most heinous crimes against the Palestnian people. For Palestinians, the Supreme Court merely provides a legal veneer for the Zionist regime’s crimes against them.

Last year, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the residents of Masafer Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank, who were petitioning against the demolition of two schools, clinics and structures in the area. Over one thousand residents of Masafer Yatta are at imminent risk of forcible expulsion from their land in the Occupied Territories. If the “pro-democracy” protests were sincere by any count, they would call for Palestinian rights to be respected, for the Israeli military to be dismantled, for ongoing ethnic cleansing to be halted, and for all Palestinian refugees to be allowed to return to their homes.

The Tel-Aviv protests remind us that real struggle for democracy and social justice in Palestine cannot be led by the settler class. They must be led by the working class and oppressed. The struggle for democracy must be a struggle against Zionism and imperialism that centres the rights of Palestinians. The recent protests should serve as a reminder that we must continue to fight for a truly democratic and equitable society, we must be wary of those who claim progressivity as a means to cement their privilege. Our struggle for democracy in Palestine will continue to be guided by the words of the staunch anti-zionist and friend of the Palestinian people, Amilcar Cabral: “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.”